Can't get Vista SP1 to install

Here's my situation. I bought a custom gaming PC about a year ago and it came with Vista Home Premium 32bit. Since SP1 was released, I've tried several times to install it both through Windows Update and manually but it always fails. I looked at the information in the Knowledgebase article about the error message I was getting and it suggested running a system scan utility through the command line interface which I did. The utility said that it fixed some files but I had corrupted files that it was not able to repair.

I went out and bought an upgrade version of Vista Home Premium that contained SP1 thinking I could just upgrade it as a workaround. No dice, the upgrade option is disabled unless you already have SP1 installed. It will only let me do a clean install. This brings me to my first question. If I do the clean install, it's going to format my HD right? I'll have to reinstall all my software?

My second question is, does anybody know how I can get SP1 to install on my current installation? Any way to find and repair those supposedly corrupt files?

Re: Can't get Vista SP1 to install

I already tried all that but thanks for trying.

All I really want to know now is what I'm going to lose if I do a clean Vista install and what I need to backup. I haven't had to do a clean install of an OS to fix a problem since I was running Windows 98.

I seem to recall that, back then, it would not format the HD and delete everything but your stuff like My Documents and what not would be erased. All the software you installed would still be there but all the registry entries go poof so it needs to be reinstalled.

That's what I'm wondering about now. If anybody can confirm or deny those things, I'll get started on doing this reinstall.

Re: Can't get Vista SP1 to install

Originally Posted by Pete B

I already tried all that but thanks for trying.

All I really want to know now is what I'm going to lose if I do a clean Vista install and what I need to backup. I haven't had to do a clean install of an OS to fix a problem since I was running Windows 98.

I seem to recall that, back then, it would not format the HD and delete everything but your stuff like My Documents and what not would be erased. All the software you installed would still be there but all the registry entries go poof so it needs to be reinstalled.

That's what I'm wondering about now. If anybody can confirm or deny those things, I'll get started on doing this reinstall.

Hello Peter,
If I were you, I would save files/folders that I wanted to keep on cds before reinstalling. I have never done a clean installing, but I do know you need to re-install all your drivers. You should have a DRIVERS & UTILITIES disk that came with the computer. (Mine did.) That's just about all I know. Good luck.

Re: Can't get Vista SP1 to install

So, open Windows Update, in the left pane, click View update history and check the updates that have failed to install.
If any updates failed, please give the error details.
On of the reason of this error is that one of the prerequisite update pre-SP1 failed to install.